PART FOURTEEN

MPD: 30

Numberwang

It was Numberwang Day - 386 and I had agreed to talk numbers once a week. He was allowed to show me 5 slides, in normal font size, and he could use them to brag or worry as he saw fit.

For some reason he liked to start by saying, "Let's get crunchy."

I sat on my non-itchy sofa, put my feet up, and let the slideshow begin.

MPD Per Trap Type (7-Day Rolling Average)

One-Armed Bandits 7.7

Bit Pushers 6.0

Spider Smash 4.1

Spider Eye Shy 3.3

Orc Smack 1.5

Cthulhu's Call of Mirrors 1.4

Ski Ball 1.1

Amazeballs 1.0

Lair Hockey 0.9

Test Your Strength 0.8

Hoops 0.8

Some interesting results. Gambling was still our main cash cow. The strength games hadn't gone as well as I'd hoped - 386 listened in on everyone's conversations and his theory was that guests didn't want to show their Attributes, or their friends knew them anyway. People were mostly doing the Test Your Strength game hoping it would help them level up in that stat. Which... it probably wouldn't. If it ever did, though! That would be incredible marketing for the dungeon. The other new games will get explained soon enough, if you can't guess what they were just from the names.

With all the traps plus the time guests spent in corridors, or watching their friends, or smashing things in the Demolition Derby, we were making about 30 Mana Points in profit per day.

"386, this is all extremely excellent. I've got some ideas for our next steps. You'll love it." I told him my ideas and he listened patiently. Then he told me he was nearly ready to prototype some of the other new games. Then I told him I was off to the old town for a bit. On my way out I remembered something. "Oh, can Lennie learn a new skill?"

"When we begin to summon monsters again he will level up as they do. I can direct his Skills through various paths so that he might better smite his enemies. Each path is more vicious and bloodthirsty than the last! So mote it be! Would you like to see the options?"

"No, and maybe breathe into a paper bag for a minute. I want to know if Lennie can learn a skill. Like, and this is only an example, gardening."

The butchery instantly evaporated from 386's tone. "Gardening?"

"Yes."

A pause. "No."

"Okay."

A pause. "I forbid it."

"Oh... wait. You forbid it. But he could learn it?"

"No, of course he... Um... Huh."

"What?"

"Normally it would be impossible. But... and I think I can say this in a variety of tones and levels of snark..." - his voice suddenly split into about 7 different ones, all British, more than half highly sarcastic - "you are not normal."

I was about to defend myself when I realised what he meant. "Because I can talk to the animals..."

"You could teach Lennie gardening. I think."

"What if there was a proper teacher and I was just in the room? Sort of doing translation?"

"We could try it, I suppose. If it doesn't work I can escalate it to the Engine and find out definitively."

"Nice having a direct line to the boss."

"If you think about it, I'm the boss and she has a direct line to me."

I didn't respond to such obvious provocation. "Lennie will need a gold coin for the lesson. Sound good?"

"Yes. Why do you want him to learn gardening?"

"I don't."

While My Guitar Gently Creeps

I went into the old town to look for a teacher and not for any other reason. No, sir. No, siree.

Annoyingly, I found what I needed extremely quickly and I didn't even have to work very hard to persuade the teacher to come with me to a dark and creepy cave. My charisma was above average but... shrug emoji. It all meant that I didn't get much chance to hang around the old town where I was decidedly NOT looking for anyone in particular and had NOT gone at the exact time I had met someone there previously.

As we walked, I pointed to the teacher's instrument. "Is that an expensive piece?"

"Medium, I'd say."

"And you're not worried about heading into a dungeon?"

"It's a starter dungeon. I can handle myself."

"Wait," I said, putting together some clues from her outfit and lack of apprehension. "Are you a bard?"

She grinned. She was super cute. Blonde. Sparkly eyes. Quick fingers. Quick smile. "Used to be. I got old, and so did adventuring."

I frowned. "You're talking like you're 50 years old or something. You look about 22."

She slapped my arm. "You and your silver tongue!"

"Blame my silver eyes if you're going to blame anything. How old are you supposed to be?"

"You shouldn't ask. But since you asked, I'm 37."

I frowned again. I don't want to be a male chauvinist pig and I don't want to turn into a hashtag but this was a smoking hot 22-year-old I was looking at. Like with my credit check in the bank, something had gone wrong.

But again, I didn't dwell on it. What did I care, really? It's not like Lennie would notice the difference.

"Am I interrupting?"

I snapped my head round and smiled so hard it hurt. Then I wondered what the hail was wrong with me and tried to get a grip. The normal-looking woman was waiting for me to reply. "How old do you think this woman is?" I gestured to show she was welcome to walk with us, and she did.

NLW looked at the elderly bard. "Uh, I'm bad at this. 25? Where are we going?"

"A few minutes that way. Do you want to see my bachelor pad?"

"Ooh, you're supposed to take me to dinner first."

"What is this, the 19th century?"

"Technically, yes. It's 1824."

I laughed. "Oh, right. Well, come anyway. I'll show you my Victorian wood carvings. Scratch that - I'll show you the craziest thing you'll ever see in the BetterVerse."

She scoffed. "No offence but I've been playing since it launched. I've seen some weird things."

"We're going to teach a skeleton to play his ribs like a xylophone."

She contemplated that. "I don't think you realise how much I needed to hear those exact words in that exact order."

Lennie B. Good

NLW grabbed my arm and stopped me from going into the dungeon. "Aren't you going to ask my name before I go into your literal man cave?"

"No," I said, cool as ice, smooth as a smoothie, "You're going to come into my man cave and I'm going to tell you your name."

"What?"

What had sounded light and fun in my head had come out slightly overbaked. I tried to show I was being lighthearted by waggling my eyebrows more. "I'll tell you your name. I'm quite the magician." I produced a card from between my fingers.

"You couldn't guess my name in a million years."

I flicked the card around the back of my head and caught it. "When you're right a hundred percent of the time, it no longer counts as guessing."

With a drop-dead gorgeous little smirk, I winked at the bard and we went inside. NLW woman followed, a bit slower than before.

We walked around looking for Lennie - it should go without saying that I never took anyone into the dungeon core room, ever - and NLW looked at the games and one-armed bandits and stuff absolutely bewildered. Things weren't going to get any easier to understand.

"Ah, Lennie, come here my man." I gave the skeleton handshake number 3 and introduced him to the bard. Lennie looked at her like she was a goddess sent from heaven - I mean, she was really attractive so he had good taste - and shyly handed her a gold coin. She started trying to teach him Violin. It didn't work at first, but on the third try we realised it would work if I held the bard's hand and Lennie's hand at the same time. I'm pretty sure the Engine just wanted a weird image to use in its private slideshows. But good news - Lennie could play the violin!

"What is happening?" said NLW, who couldn't hear 386 talking to me, couldn't really hear me mumbling back, and wasn't sure why I was holding hands with a dungeon boss.

I gave her a dimply grin but didn't answer right away. I tapped the bard on the shoulder. "Would you like to see a magic trick?"

"Oh, yes!" she said. "A lot of Hourlies use pick up artist techniques on me. It's like free cabaret."

"I bet. But none of them can pull a coin from behind your ear, can they?" I reached over and did just that. It was, of course, 386 summoning the silver from his stocks.

"Yes, that's the trick I've seen the most."

"Oh," I said, pretending to be disappointed. "I'll just chuck this away, then." I threw the coin behind her and it landed on a HUGE pile of silver coins.

"Oh my goat!" she said. "Where did that come from?"

I took a step to the side so that when she looked at me she wouldn't see the coins in her peripheral vision. "What?" I said. She repeated her question, and I replied, "Where did what come from?"

She turned to point to the coins, but of course they'd vanished. She giggled.

"Now," I said. This was the hard part. "For my second trick I would like to make your violin disappear."

"Um," she said.

"And reappear," I said, encouragingly.

"Oh! Then why not?" she handed it over. I smashed it against a wall and made Lennie dance on the broken pieces. The bard stared in horror and actual tears came to her eyes. NLW started to slide her sword out of its scabbard.

"Whoa!" I said, palms up, pointing them at each woman in turn. "I thought that would be funny. Sorry. I misjudged the mood. Look, there's your violin."

"Where?" said the bard, looking left and right.

"Here," I said, moving closer as though I would kiss her, but then plucking the violin from 'behind her ear'.

She laugh-gasped with relief, then checked the violin was really hers, and then laughed again. She wagged her finger at me. "I didn't like that," she said.

"But... you're laughing," I said.

"Hmm," she said.

"Perhaps a few bronze coins would ease your mental distress?"

"Perhaps they would."

"Here," I said. I pretended to rummage behind my own ear, then handed her three bronze and showed her the one-armed bandits. She lost all her money but left happy.

"That was all very strange," said NLW. "Smashing the violin was the first lame thing I've seen you do."

"Oh," I said, briefly upset. "Yeah, I suppose it wasn't nice. But I had to."

"Why?"

"Oh, what's that behind your ear?" I said.

She gripped her sword again. "There's nothing behind my ear. Don't do that."

"If I don't have consent to show you what's behind your ear, I obviously won't. Hashtag World Consent Day."

She pushed her lips together in an annoyed way, but they seemed to twist - against her will - into a little smile. "Fine."

I pulled a violin from behind her ear. It was absolutely identical to the bard's. Even down to the scratches and the frayed bits at the end of the wire.

She opened her mouth to speak but I held a finger up and gave a tiny head shake. I handed the violin to Lennie and he put it under his chin, hovered the windscreen wiper thing above the strings, and stared at me.

I looked the woman dead in the eye and said, "Tell me, Nicki Valentine, what's your favorite song?"

I thought I was being winning. But I was being losing.